the iafor journal of asian studies Contemporary Chinese Cinema Special Edition Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 Editor: Seiko Yasumoto ISSN: 2187-6037 The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue – I IAFOR Publications Executive Editor: Joseph Haldane The International Academic Forum The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Editor: Seiko Yasumoto, University of Sydney, Australia Associate Editor: Jason Bainbridge, Swinburne University, Australia Published by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan Executive Editor: Joseph Haldane Editorial Assistance: Rachel Dyer IAFOR Publications. Sakae 1-16-26-201, Naka-ward, Aichi, Japan 460-0008 Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 IAFOR Publications © Copyright 2016 ISSN: 2187-6037 Online: joas.iafor.org Cover image: Flickr Creative Commons/Guy Gorek The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue I – Spring 2016 Edited by Seiko Yasumoto Table of Contents Notes on contributors 1 Welcome and Introduction 4 From Recording to Ritual: Weimar Villa and 24 City 10 Dr. Jinhee Choi Contested identities: exploring the cultural, historical and 25 political complexities of the ‘three Chinas’ Dr. Qiao Li & Prof. Ros Jennings Sounds, Swords and Forests: An Exploration into the Representations 41 of Music and Martial Arts in Contemporary Kung Fu Films Brent Keogh Sentimentalism in Under the Hawthorn Tree 53 Jing Meng Changes Manifest: Time, Memory, and a Changing Hong Kong 65 Emma Tipson The Taste of Ice Kacang: Xiaoqingxin Film as the Possible 74 Prospect of Taiwan Popular Cinema Panpan Yang Subtitling Chinese Humour: the English Version of A Woman, a 85 Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009) Yilei Yuan The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 Notes on Contributers Dr. Jinhee Choi Correspondence: [email protected] Jinhee Choi is senior lecturer in film studies at King’s College London, UK. She is the author of Korean Film Renaissance: Local Hitmakers Global Provocateurs (2010) and the co-editor of Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice and Spectatorship (2014), of Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema (2009), and of Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures (2006). Her articles have appeared in such journals as the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, Jump Cut, and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and she is currently editing a volume on Japanese director Ozu Yasujiro. Dr. Robert Hyland Correspondence: [email protected] Robert Hyland teaches cinema studies at Queen’s University’s Bader International Study Centre, UK. He has published on Chinese and Japanese cinemas in the journals Asian Cinema, the Journal of East Asian Popular Culture, and the IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies. His writing has also appeared in the anthology Horror to the Extreme, Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema and he has presented papers in conferences throughout Asia. Prof. Ros Jennings Correspondence: [email protected] Ros Jennings is Head of Postgraduate Research, Director of the Centre for Women, Ageing and Media (WAM) and Reader in Cultural studies. She is Deputy Executive Director and founding member of the European Network in Aging Studies (ENAS) and a founding member of the ENAS In Heritage research group. As Head of Postgraduate Research, she now contributes to strategic policy for these areas of university provision. Ros is also external committee member of Bath Spa University’s Higher Degrees Committee. Ros has international recognition for research leadership, collaborative research and collaborative doctoral and post- doctoral training in the area of Women, Ageing and Media. Her published work has been concerned with popular culture and questions of gender, sexuality and identity but since 2007, when Ros was Principal Investigator for the successful Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) networking project Women, Ageing and Media, her work has focused on women, ageing and popular culture (particularly popular music). Dr. Brent Keogh Correspondence: [email protected] Brent Keogh is a musician and academic, specialising in the areas of popular music studies and ethnomusicology. His doctoral studies examined the discourse of World Music in Australia. He has published in the areas of arts policy, musical sustainability, music ecology, and music festivals. He currently teaches at Macquarie University, Department of Media, Music, Communications and Cultural Studies, and UTS, in the areas of Popular Music, International Communications, and Media Studies. He also plays and performs on the oud, an Egyptian lute, 1 The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 and has studied for a number of years with oud virtuoso and ARIA award winner Joseph Tawadros. Dr. Qiao Li Correspondence: [email protected] Dr. Qiao Li has an M.A. from the University de Caen, Basse-Normandie, France and a Ph.D. from the University of Gloucestershire, UK, with expertise in Asian Cinema. He is a senior lecturer for the Faculty of Communication, Media & Broadcasting, and a program leader at the Postgraduate Research Centre at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. He has taught at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the fields of film, theories of genre, and world cinema etc. He also teaches on the postgraduate MAFTV courses and supervises M.A.s on film topics. He has been conducting research on film with publications and conference papers in both English and Chinese languages. His main area of research and teaching is national cinema and identities, Asian cinema, Chinese language cinemas, and film authorship and film directors. He is also active in digital filmmaking with short films and published feature film script. Jing Meng Correspondence: [email protected] Jing Meng, Ph.D is a candidate in Film and TV Studies in the Department of Culture, Film and Media, University of Nottingham, UK. Jing’s research is supported in part by the China Scholarship Council. Any correspondence concerning Jing’s article should be addressed to: Jing Meng, Department of Culture, Film and Media, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, UK, NG7 2RD Emma Tipson Correspondence: [email protected] Emma Tipson is currently undertaking study at the University of Toronto, Canada, with specialisation in English Literature and Sociology. In 2013 she spent time as a student at the Bader International Study Centre in Herstmonceux, UK, focusing on studying Hong Kong Cinema. In 2014 she studied at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea, and then at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Panpan Yang Correspondence: [email protected] Born in China, Panpan Yang is currently a first-year Ph.D. student in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, US. She got her M.A. in Cinema Studies from New York University and B.A. in Film Production and Philosophy from Peking University, China. Her research interests include animation, Chinese cinemas and global melodramas. Her article, “Animating Landscape: Chinese Ink-and-wash Animation, 1960-2013,” is published in International Journal of Comic Art. 2 The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 Yilei Yuan Correspondence: [email protected] Yilei Yuan is a final-year Ph.D. student in Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. She is based in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies and is jointly funded by University of Glasgow and China Scholarship Council (CSC). She is writing her thesis on the subtitling of Chinese cinema with Zhang Yimou’s films as case studies. Previously, she was studying translation and interpreting at Beihang University in Beijing, China and she did her undergraduate studies in Beihang University and Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, China. She is the author of ‘Translating Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization of China: Foreword of Volume VII, Part II as an Example’ (East Journal of Translation, forthcoming). She is also a translator and subtitler. 3 The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 Welcome Welcome to our first special issue of the IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies. We encourage you to submit your work to our journal for peer review. We hope that you find the papers in this special issue insightful and an encouragement to publish your research through this journal. We have invited Dr. Robert Hyland to be guest editor of this special edition and his introduction follows. Dr. Seiko Yasumoto, Editor Professor Jason Bainbridge, Associate Editor Introduction This volume is a special edition dedicated to the examination of recent trends and issues in contemporary Chinese cinema. The genesis of this issue began with a conference on Post Olympics Chinese Cinema, held at Queen’s University’s, “Bader International Study Centre.” The conference was intended to explore the changes which have emerged in contemporary Chinese cinema following the intense media interest in China after the media frenzy the 2008 games attracted. The articles collected in this issue primarily focus on films produced after the Beijing Olympics of 2008 and examine an increasingly liberalized Chinese cinema; a cinema marked by issues of the national, post-national and trans-national. The Beijing Olympics were a watershed moment for China, where a supposed restrictive society obscured to the west by a Bamboo Curtain, hosted a global national event as a forum to reveal itself as a newly minted global economy equally competitive in sport, culture and spectacle. P. Horton quotes the China Daily (Renmin Ribao) of August 30, 2004, celebrating China’s victories in the previous Athens Olympics. When a country is powerful its sport will flourish. Chinese athletes’ excellent performance at the Olympic stage is inevitably proof of our great achievements in economic reform and modernization. The achievements at the games have showed China’s ability to stand proudly and independently among the other nations in the world.